fbk
Contributor
OK this will be long but anyway... read if you are thinking about getting a Hero3 black.
So a few months ago I got interested in underwater video... picked up a Hero2 just after the 3 came out, to get my feet wet so to speak. First couple of vids turned out great (to me at least, as a 1st timer) and I enjoyed the whole editing process, and found the end result more satisfying than a bunch of photos I look at a few times then forget about. So after a couple of vids I decided I would get the Hero3 to take advantage of the better low light performance, raw WB, 1080/60 etc... Had a couple of goes with that and was impressed as well. All of this is in anticipation of a trip to Raja Ampat I booked over a year ago, imagining myself coming back with hours of stunning footage I can put some music to and have playing when people come over, so they can go "wow, did you take that".
So fast forward a bit, I got back from my trip this week. When I bought the Hero3 and all the accessories that go with it (batteries, SRP filter, Sola lights, tray etc) I was initially going to sell the H2 but decided to keep it as a spare for this trip. I'm glad I did because half my footage from the trip is from the Hero2. Here is my summary of the week on a liveaboard with the Hero3 Black. it's lucky it made it home with me, I was so tempted to hurl it over the side of the boat never to be seen again, the satisfaction of doing so would have been worth the $400.
There were four Hero3 Blacks on board this trip. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had similar problems at some stage throughout the week. I had read up on everything to do with the H3 freezing and all the best ways to avoid it (external battery chargers, using a card reader instead of connecting to PC with USB, etc), and hadn't had any issues with it prior to the trip, but I lost count of how many times it would just randomly freeze when turning it on, with just the rear LED glowing. The only fix is to pull the battery - easy if you are inside and dry. Not so doable underwater.
I lost a couple of early dives when I got in the water, turned it on, and it locked up. Unable to do anything except wait until out of the water, by which time it was too hot to hold after being stuck for over an hour in the special "on but completely useless for anything" hidden GoPro mode not mentioned in the manual. Then I started turning it on in the zodiac, before getting in the water, but again it's not so easy to pull the battery out while bouncing around in a dinghy with water splashing everywhere, fully geared up on the way to a dive site. I did try it once - well my hands were wet so I had to get a friend to pull it apart for me. Of course she had no idea how the LCD screen came off, or the battery cover, or how to pull the battery tab, or put it back together, so you can imagine the joy of trying to get someone to do this for you when we are about to backroll into the water. Then of course manipulate those ridiculous but absolutely vital anti-fog strips back into position without getting in the way of the door/o-ring or camera buttons... Hard enough to do with tweezers in a dry cabin. Impossible with wet hands while bouncing around in a dinghy. I got it all back together but it fogged up almost straight away that dive.
The first few dives where it did actually work, I was in 1080/60 protune mode, with the LCD in place but being used only sparingly, but I was only getting about 40-50 mins out of it. Considering most dives were around 70min and the best stuff was often at the end in 5m, I missed a lot of it. Initally I let someone else use my "spare" Hero2 but then realised I would need to take both on each dive so some of these dives I finished off with the H2. The H2 didn't have the LCD so I was just guessing what I was shooting - by holding the 2 trays together and using the lights (that were attached to the H3) I thought I would be pretty right but there was some footage of a giant moray and a wobbegong that was totally misframed and useless due to not seeing what I was shooting. Not to mention that in comparison the H2 footage just looks grainy and rubbish in anything but bright sunlight.
The battery life of the H3 was really annoying me and I remember seeing that 60fps and protune are the most power hungry modes so I decided to switch to 30fps and leave protune off and see how it went. Battery life was much improved (would usually last the whole 70min+ dive including the trip out, as by this stage I was turning it on in the cabin and making sure it wasn't locked up) but I then realised how important the raw WB mode is (available only in battery sucking protune mode of course). I have tons of footage where everything is completely green. I'd seen that this can occur when the camera's auto WB goes bonkers especially after pointing it at the sun with a red filter on. Well maybe if the LCD screen was useable without instantly killing the battery I would have been able to see it happening, but I didn't. Maybe also if I didn't point it at the sun it wouldn't have happened either, but I didn't dare turn the camera on or off throughout the dive for fear of it locking up so just let it run continuously and obviously at some point when running but not actually shooting anything, it gets pointed skywards.
SPeaking of filters... You have to take them off as soon as you hit the water (or put them on after you get in but that would leave it flopping around waiting to get caught on something) and flush all the micro bubbles out between the filter and lens. Or anytime you swim through bubbles. Probably a schoolboy error and one which I was aware of but its too easy to forget and not realise till later that the first 10 min of your footage is ruined because of the bubbles all over the lens. Of course being able to use the LCD screen might have also caught this early but then again it is so tiny and hard to see that I'm not sure it would have mattered. Towards the end I was diligent enough about this for it to not be a problem but it is still a trap for young players.
Halfway through the trip I was getting on top of things, interestingly the freezing/lockups were almost non-existent later on, whether this had anything to do with not using the more demanding 60fps protune modes I don't know. I did end up using protune again and just trying to get as much footage as I could, by leaving the camera on but starting/stopping shooting when I needed to. By this stage the Hero3 and I were starting to make peace with each other but a few of the dives in the North the vis was less than average so a lot of the footage isn't great anyway.
I also did a night muck dive using the closeup lenses I bought to try out. They arrived the day before I left so I had only got to use them on land where I guessed the minimum focus distance was around 10cm. So muck diving we go, twin solas working a treat, critters everywhere, I even dared to turn the LCD on a few times to make sure I was framing properly. All looked awesome underwater but when I got back and could preview it on my laptop, anything closer than about 15cm was blurry and out of focus. Which was pretty much everything. Can't really blame the GoPro for that though.
So to sum up, I ended up with hours of mostly rubbish footage that to be honest I really can't be bothered even editing. One day I will sort through it all and see what I can get out of it (there will be a few decent bits but not the hours of continous good stuff I was imagining). I'm currently thinking seriously about getting a new camera that does decent u/water video, without locking up and with a proper LCD screen and battery life, and getting rid of the GoPro's altogether, in time for my next trip anyway.
As a final aside, my camera is on the way back to GoPro anyway as it arrived, unbelievably, with a scratch on the lens. There was no time to send it away and get it back before I left so I got a RMA# and told them I would send it after I get back. Hopefully I will get a newer one without the issues as I still think for the money they are hard to beat, they are small and convenient and capable of doing great things, when they work, and provided you just want to capture wide angle where framing isn't critical. I just don't know if I will trust one on my next $5000 dive trip.
So a few months ago I got interested in underwater video... picked up a Hero2 just after the 3 came out, to get my feet wet so to speak. First couple of vids turned out great (to me at least, as a 1st timer) and I enjoyed the whole editing process, and found the end result more satisfying than a bunch of photos I look at a few times then forget about. So after a couple of vids I decided I would get the Hero3 to take advantage of the better low light performance, raw WB, 1080/60 etc... Had a couple of goes with that and was impressed as well. All of this is in anticipation of a trip to Raja Ampat I booked over a year ago, imagining myself coming back with hours of stunning footage I can put some music to and have playing when people come over, so they can go "wow, did you take that".
So fast forward a bit, I got back from my trip this week. When I bought the Hero3 and all the accessories that go with it (batteries, SRP filter, Sola lights, tray etc) I was initially going to sell the H2 but decided to keep it as a spare for this trip. I'm glad I did because half my footage from the trip is from the Hero2. Here is my summary of the week on a liveaboard with the Hero3 Black. it's lucky it made it home with me, I was so tempted to hurl it over the side of the boat never to be seen again, the satisfaction of doing so would have been worth the $400.
There were four Hero3 Blacks on board this trip. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had similar problems at some stage throughout the week. I had read up on everything to do with the H3 freezing and all the best ways to avoid it (external battery chargers, using a card reader instead of connecting to PC with USB, etc), and hadn't had any issues with it prior to the trip, but I lost count of how many times it would just randomly freeze when turning it on, with just the rear LED glowing. The only fix is to pull the battery - easy if you are inside and dry. Not so doable underwater.
I lost a couple of early dives when I got in the water, turned it on, and it locked up. Unable to do anything except wait until out of the water, by which time it was too hot to hold after being stuck for over an hour in the special "on but completely useless for anything" hidden GoPro mode not mentioned in the manual. Then I started turning it on in the zodiac, before getting in the water, but again it's not so easy to pull the battery out while bouncing around in a dinghy with water splashing everywhere, fully geared up on the way to a dive site. I did try it once - well my hands were wet so I had to get a friend to pull it apart for me. Of course she had no idea how the LCD screen came off, or the battery cover, or how to pull the battery tab, or put it back together, so you can imagine the joy of trying to get someone to do this for you when we are about to backroll into the water. Then of course manipulate those ridiculous but absolutely vital anti-fog strips back into position without getting in the way of the door/o-ring or camera buttons... Hard enough to do with tweezers in a dry cabin. Impossible with wet hands while bouncing around in a dinghy. I got it all back together but it fogged up almost straight away that dive.
The first few dives where it did actually work, I was in 1080/60 protune mode, with the LCD in place but being used only sparingly, but I was only getting about 40-50 mins out of it. Considering most dives were around 70min and the best stuff was often at the end in 5m, I missed a lot of it. Initally I let someone else use my "spare" Hero2 but then realised I would need to take both on each dive so some of these dives I finished off with the H2. The H2 didn't have the LCD so I was just guessing what I was shooting - by holding the 2 trays together and using the lights (that were attached to the H3) I thought I would be pretty right but there was some footage of a giant moray and a wobbegong that was totally misframed and useless due to not seeing what I was shooting. Not to mention that in comparison the H2 footage just looks grainy and rubbish in anything but bright sunlight.
The battery life of the H3 was really annoying me and I remember seeing that 60fps and protune are the most power hungry modes so I decided to switch to 30fps and leave protune off and see how it went. Battery life was much improved (would usually last the whole 70min+ dive including the trip out, as by this stage I was turning it on in the cabin and making sure it wasn't locked up) but I then realised how important the raw WB mode is (available only in battery sucking protune mode of course). I have tons of footage where everything is completely green. I'd seen that this can occur when the camera's auto WB goes bonkers especially after pointing it at the sun with a red filter on. Well maybe if the LCD screen was useable without instantly killing the battery I would have been able to see it happening, but I didn't. Maybe also if I didn't point it at the sun it wouldn't have happened either, but I didn't dare turn the camera on or off throughout the dive for fear of it locking up so just let it run continuously and obviously at some point when running but not actually shooting anything, it gets pointed skywards.
SPeaking of filters... You have to take them off as soon as you hit the water (or put them on after you get in but that would leave it flopping around waiting to get caught on something) and flush all the micro bubbles out between the filter and lens. Or anytime you swim through bubbles. Probably a schoolboy error and one which I was aware of but its too easy to forget and not realise till later that the first 10 min of your footage is ruined because of the bubbles all over the lens. Of course being able to use the LCD screen might have also caught this early but then again it is so tiny and hard to see that I'm not sure it would have mattered. Towards the end I was diligent enough about this for it to not be a problem but it is still a trap for young players.
Halfway through the trip I was getting on top of things, interestingly the freezing/lockups were almost non-existent later on, whether this had anything to do with not using the more demanding 60fps protune modes I don't know. I did end up using protune again and just trying to get as much footage as I could, by leaving the camera on but starting/stopping shooting when I needed to. By this stage the Hero3 and I were starting to make peace with each other but a few of the dives in the North the vis was less than average so a lot of the footage isn't great anyway.
I also did a night muck dive using the closeup lenses I bought to try out. They arrived the day before I left so I had only got to use them on land where I guessed the minimum focus distance was around 10cm. So muck diving we go, twin solas working a treat, critters everywhere, I even dared to turn the LCD on a few times to make sure I was framing properly. All looked awesome underwater but when I got back and could preview it on my laptop, anything closer than about 15cm was blurry and out of focus. Which was pretty much everything. Can't really blame the GoPro for that though.
So to sum up, I ended up with hours of mostly rubbish footage that to be honest I really can't be bothered even editing. One day I will sort through it all and see what I can get out of it (there will be a few decent bits but not the hours of continous good stuff I was imagining). I'm currently thinking seriously about getting a new camera that does decent u/water video, without locking up and with a proper LCD screen and battery life, and getting rid of the GoPro's altogether, in time for my next trip anyway.
As a final aside, my camera is on the way back to GoPro anyway as it arrived, unbelievably, with a scratch on the lens. There was no time to send it away and get it back before I left so I got a RMA# and told them I would send it after I get back. Hopefully I will get a newer one without the issues as I still think for the money they are hard to beat, they are small and convenient and capable of doing great things, when they work, and provided you just want to capture wide angle where framing isn't critical. I just don't know if I will trust one on my next $5000 dive trip.
